Category Archives: Georgia Power

Not on Valdosta’s online calendar yet,
but we got this email notice from City Council Tim Carroll,
indicating Valdosta wastewater is first on his list to discuss.
His number 4 about Internet speed and access is also of interest
throughout the county and beyond.
As are his other items.

All,

I hope each and everyone of you are having a great start to 2019. As
we kick the year off, it is time to begin preparing for the cities
annual Mayor and Council retreat.

Solar power is here right now. Georgia is #10 in the nation (up from #22 in 2017)
by solar deployed (1,552.98 MW) and #7 in projected growth,
according to
the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
That’s ahead of Florida, but still behind much farther north New Jersey and Massachusetts, which have less sun.

This year the Southern Company
annual report says increased energy revenues were “primarily due
to increases in renewable energy sales”, yet Southern Power is selling off
a third interest in its solar facilities.
Why? To pay off debt from its failed Big Bet on Plant Vogtle nukes,
and its new Big Bet on stranded assets in natural gas pipelines.
I don’t think the future lies that way, Tom Fanning, abandoning solar power
and getting in bed with Sabal Trail.

Well, they spelled that wrong, as “Where are we now?”
Maybe for the video narrator from California who showed
a picture of lily pads when he said “River”.

But to be fair, this website and
the video from the Development Authority
organized by
VisionFirst whom Lowndes County paid $25,000,
presumably matching Valdosta,
also adopted by
SGRC,
does work hard to show a positive vision of the local area.
Oops, I forgot the hospital and the Chamber, and, most importantly,
Georgia Power, listed in the FAQ:

A few years ago,
a doctor in Valdosta applied for a variance
for solar panels over his parking lot.
The Zoning Board of Approvals (ZBOA) tabled it,
because Valdosta’s Land Development Regulations (LDR)
did not permit that.
I think he then made the panels connected to his building,
which put them a different and already-permitted category.

What if Valdosta and other local governments updated their codes
to enable parking lot and other solar power?

What:
“The Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, and University of Georgia have come together to develop a model solar zoning ordinance to provide county and city officials and other decision-makers in Georgia access to best practices and a common baseline from which to work. We will produce a comprehensive document that addresses multiple scales and types of solar energy systems that counties and cities can adopt and adapt to their needs.”

The carbon bubble is bursting,
as jobs fly from some of the biggest companies in the world,
because solar and wind power are taking over right now.
It’s too late to bet on the wrong nuclear horse
or the wrong pipelnie snake.
Get out of fossil fuels now: the sun is rising.

General Electric, whose new leadership is moving to eliminate bloat
and grapple with the fallout from earlier, ill-timed decisions, is
taking drastic steps to keep pace with seismic shifts in the global
energy industry.

The company said on Thursday that it would cut 12,000 jobs in its
power division, reducing the size of the unit’s work force by 18
percent as part of a push to compete with international rivals in a
saturated natural gas market, adjust to “softening” in
the oil and gas sectors and stay abreast of the growing demand for
renewable energy.

Longest at seven minutes was
6a. REZ-2017-11 Arrow Engineering,
in which the County Commissioners ignored the Planning Commission’s recommendation to deny, and the County Planner’s observation the previous morning that
the applicants would accept one acre.
Instead they approved 2.5 acres with no conditions as Office Institutional (OI)
in an area with no other instances of that.

While it’s great that Georgia Power came to compliment the county,
does that electric utility rep. reside in or pay property taxes in Lowndes County, and why was he not required to state his name and address?
Ditto the software salesman for Continue reading →

OSHA certified a “continuing pattern of retaliatory treatment”
at Kemper “clean” Coal after an employee
alerted Southern Company of alleged fraud: SO fired him, refused to hire him back and now he’s suing.
Plant “new nukes” Vogtle also had
impossible projections from the start and is even later and more overbudget,
while anybody from GA-PSC to Georgia EMCs to the Florida PSC
or even PowerSouth in Alabama could bring it down.
Somebody put Plant Vogtle out of its misery so we can get on with solar power
in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and everywhere else.

Two new cooling towers and construction cranes mark the work sites for nuclear reactors 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle in east Georgia. The project is currently $3.6 billion over budget and almost four years behind the original schedule. JOHNNY EDWARDS / JREDWARDS@AJC.COM, in
Plant Vogtle: Georgia’s nuclear ‘renaissance’ now a financial quagmire by Russell Grantham and Johnny Edwards, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 19 May 2017.